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'Mom, are you dying?' Young mom faces new cancer battle

Annie Scholten sits with her family - husband Darrell and sons Lucas, 5, in red, Eli, 8, in blue and Logan, 4 - in their Williamston home Wednesday, December 9, 2015. Scholten was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was told she had less than a year to live. With the news, the Williamston community has rallied around to help the family. (Photo: Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal)

Her middle son, 5-year-old Lucas, has a slight grasp of what’s happening.

“My 5-year-old knows the terminology,” said Scholten, who is known as Annie by her friends. “You know, ‘Mom, are you dying?’ ‘Yeah, honey, I am.’ But the little one has no comprehension of what that actually means.”

But for 8-year-old Eli, it’s all too real. He knows what death is. He understands that the cancer his mother endured nine years ago has come back and is terminal. He sees the “Annie’s Army” T-shirts in the hallways and classrooms of Williamston’s Discovery Elementary School.

He’s having “a rough time,” she said.

“I don’t want him to focus on the negatives, or be scared or sad,” Annie said. “I want him to understand that I’m OK. God’s plan is bigger than us.”

Along with her faith, the children are the reason Annie is “OK.”

“Any extra day I get with them is amazing,” Annie said. The family Shih-Tzu Maltese, Charlie, was napping peacefully along her blanketed lap and legs.

“Any extra day I can wake up and wait for them to get off the school bus is a day that I’m willing to have.”

Ann Scholten

“Any extra day I can wake up and wait for them to get off the school bus is a day that I’m willing to have.”

Annie said she first was diagnosed with sarcoma cancer nine years ago at the age of 21. She underwent a double mastectomy, as well as chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

The cancer seemed licked. She was told that if it stayed away 10 years, she was “good to go.” In August, after nine years and a few months, she learned it was back.

And terminal.

“It’s now in my lung,” she said.

Two weeks ago doctors at the University of Michigan Medical Center gave her four months to live.

That was it. She decided to end the treatments.

But good news came Monday.

“The tumor has shrunk 2 millimeters on the top and bottom, which isn’t a ton, but until now it wasn’t shrinking at all,” Annie said. “It was just growing and growing. So that’s good.

Annie Scholten helps her son Eli, 8, with his homework in their Williamston home Wednesday, December 9, 2015 as youngest son Logan, 4, colors. Scholten was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was told she had less than a year to live. With the news, the Williamston community has rallied around to help the family. (Photo: Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal)

“It just means we’ll continue on the chemo regimen and it gives me some extra time.”

It might get her another four or five months, she guessed. The doctors won’t say.

Annie and her husband, Darrell, are good friends with Jeff and Heather Gorsline. They’re fellow members at Williamston Free Methodist Church, where Annie sings and plays with the band. The four of them are part of a church care group that formed Many Hands, a small nonprofit that feeds needy elementary school children.

“We’re fine-tuning what that project’s going to look like,” Jeff Gorsline said. “Helping families going through a terminal illness and making sure financially they’re going to be OK.”

An Annie’s Army Facebook page is closing in on 1,900 likes. This fall, Williamston businesses covered their windows in pink to raise awareness about Annie and her fight.

On a Friday in October, more than 700 pink balloons were released in her honor at a Williamston High School football game. Annie, Darrell, and Eli watched it all from midfield.

Money is arriving at the family home, much of it anonymously. One person whom she calls “Santa” is sending the family — including Annie’s parents, Marlene and Tim Hardesty — to Disney World this month.

“I’ll have to ride in a wheelchair around the parks,” Annie said. “This will be our first family vacation, and what better vacation than to see my children’s faces at Disney World?”

They’ll be back in time to celebrate Christmas together. Chemo treatments return the Monday after.

“I never would have dreamed this would have been the support we would have received when I was first diagnosed,” Annie said. “To be able to have financial support, it really helps during a terminal diagnosis. It really makes you feel better about leaving the world and making sure your family’s going to be OK.”

Contact Curt Smith at (517) 377-1226 or csmith@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @CurtSmithLSJ.